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Enjoy MyHeritage’s Free Irish Records

Search MyHeritage’s 14 million Irish records free of charge until March 19. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

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New from MyHeritage DNA: cM Explainer

MyHeritage DNA has unveiled cM Explainer™.“ This latest new feature “estimates familial relationships between DNA Matches,” calculates the probabilities associated with each potential relationship, and “determines the most recent common ancestor.” MyHeritage relies on the amount of shared DNA and the ages of one’s matches to refine predictions, just as 23andMe has done for years. Users can view an illustration of the relationship path for each of their genetic relatives. cM Explainer™ is now a free feature available to anyone with MyHeritage DNA results. Non-MyHeritage customers have the option to use cM Explainer™ as a free standalone tool at myheritage.com/cm. 

Expect more product announcements this week as RootsTech 2023 continues.

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Register Now: 2021 Indiana African American Genealogy Group Conference

Let the healing begin as I discuss the healing power of genetic genealogy at the Indiana African American Genealogy Group Annual Conference online September 17-18, 2021. Join us for a power-packed weekend of storytelling and discovery.

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Join Us for The Summer of DNA Virtual Conference - July 31, 2021

Master genetic genealogy at Family History Fanatics’ Summer of DNA Virtual Conference on Saturday, 31 July 2021, starting at 9:45 AM Eastern Time. Watch the first session to see genetic ancestry results from five autosomal DNA test companies compared. Then, view the remaining three sessions to learn how to use DNA to research African-American, Irish, and Jewish ancestors.

Want to replay the sessions for 30 days after the conference? Then, register in advance. See the agenda below. See you at the conference in July.

TOPICS & PRESENTERS

● A Five Company Comparison of DNA Ethnicity Results - Diahan Southard

● Jewish DNA: Strategies to Analyze Endogamy - Alec Ferretti

● DNA Strategies for African American Genealogy Research - Shannon Christmas

● Leveraging DNA to Research Your Irish Ancestry - Maurice Gleeson

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Use MyHeritage DNA’s New Genetic Group Filter

Our genetic genealogy toolbox keeps expanding. MyHeritage has installed a new filtering option on the DNA Matches page, enabling users to filter their DNA Matches to only display genetic relatives who share a specific Genetic Group.

Filtering one’s matches based on Genetic Group membership can help one identify matches who hail from a certain region – a potentially valuable clue for determining relationships. According to MyHeritage, “[y]ou can filter the matches based on the Genetic Groups in your results, or use the search field to search for any of the 2,114 Genetic Groups supported on MyHeritage.”

Let us continue to receive analytic tools that keep finding family fun.

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Access Ancestry’s Irish Records for Free This St. Patrick’s Day

Enjoy Ancestry.com’s Irish heritage records free of charge from now until the end of St. Patrick’s Day. 

Highlights of Ancestry’s Irish collections include:

Ireland, Court of Chancery Records, 1633-1851

Ireland, Exchequer Court of Equity Bill Books, 1674-1850

Ireland, Valuation Records, 1824‑1856

Ireland, Catholic Qualification and Convert Rolls, 1701‑1845

Ireland, Poor Law and Board of Guardian Records, 1839‑1920

Ireland, Church of Ireland Search Forms for Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1731‑1870

Require assistance navigating the records of the Emerald Isle? Download Ancestry’s guide, Finding Your Irish Ancestors. Share your ancestors’ stories with family and friends this St. Patrick’s Day.

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Return to Triangulating: 23andMe’s Relatives in Common is Back on Track

Welcome back true triangulation on 23andMe. While one may have read about 23andMe’s Relatives in Common malfunctioning, engineers have since corrected the error. The automated triangulation 23andMe users have come to know and love has returned.

23andMe’s latest bug reminds us to verify data analyses from each DNA testing company. Test with and/or transfer raw DNA data files to multiple DNA databases to detect and report discrepancies. Employing multiple databases for one’s genealogical research not only offers opportunities to catch test blunders, but also increases your access to data and tools for building and investigating genealogical hypotheses.

If you have yet to get your autosomal DNA data into each major DNA database (AncestryDNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage DNA, Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder, GEDmatch, and Living DNA), then do so pronto.

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Ancestry.com IS for Black People: The True Story of How to Research African American Family History - Part III

“Ancestry.com is not for black people.” Social media channels have echoed this refrain for years, metonymizing Ancestry.com, one of the world’s largest online genealogy databases, to assert that African American lineage research is impossible. This theory rests on the idea that the paper trail for African American families – at least before 1870, the year the US Census began listing all African Americans by name - remains too faint to trace. Nothing could be more wrong.

DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy

In the era of DNA testing, the “Ancestry.com is not for black people” meme ironically motivates some African Americans to test their autosomal DNA (often with AncestryDNA), yet narrows and flattens the perception of what genetic genealogy reveals. In the warped mind of the deluded consumer, there are no records, just “ethnicity estimates.” These customers reduce the DNA test results to pie charts and maps that can never bear the sweet fruit of family trees – names and narratives, portraits and personalities.

However, analyzing genetic relatives can unleash detailed documentation of African American family history. The DNA relative matching component of mainstream genealogical DNA tests, when coupled with documentary research, helps African American researchers to confirm suspected and identify previously unknown ancestors. Such DNA tests also reunite families that slavery and Jim Crow long ago disbanded, connecting African Americans with African relatives, descendants of their European American forebears, and branches of family that faded from view under the veil of “racial passing.” The genetic relatives populating AncestryDNA, 23andMe, Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage DNA, and Living DNA can deliver genealogical documentation on ancestors you never knew you never knew.

To extract the genealogical gems from your autosomal DNA:

·       Test yourself and as many family members as possible (especially parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, granduncles, grandaunts, great-grandparents, great-granduncles, great-grandaunts, 1st cousins, 2nd cousins, and 3rd cousins) at AncestryDNA and 23andMe.

·       After receiving results from AncestryDNA, transfer the raw DNA data files to GEDmatch.com, MyHeritage DNA, Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder, and Living DNA for free.

·       Test directly with each company whenever possible to get the highest quality results.

Testing known relatives helps one organize unknown DNA matches into family groups. Testing known relatives from the oldest living generations increases access to genetic information from long-deceased ancestors. Testing with or transferring data into multiple databases secures access to the maximum number of available genetic relatives. Each genetic relative serves as a data point for unravelling ancestral secrets.

To activate the full revelatory power of genetic genealogy, construct, compare, observe, and record patterns among the pedigrees of one’s DNA matches. These patterns represent the molecular footprints of your ancestors. Follow their lead. Remembrance is resistance, restorative justice reversing systematic erasure.

Forget The 1870 Brick Wall. Seize the opportunity to rise above the social media noise and amplify the whispers of your African American ancestors. Reclaim their names. Recount their stories. Remember their legacy. Ancestry.com is for black people.

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Ancestry.com IS for Black People: The True Story of How to Research African American Family History - Part II

“Ancestry.com is not for black people.” Social media channels have echoed this refrain for years, metonymizing Ancestry.com, one of the world’s largest online genealogy databases, to assert that African American lineage research is impossible. This theory rests on the idea that the paper trail for African American families – at least before 1870, the year the US Census began listing all African Americans by name - remains too faint to trace. Nothing could be more wrong.

Tracing Free People of Color Ancestors

Not every person of African descent in pre-emancipation America endured cradle-to-grave chattel slavery. The Americans enumerated in the 1860 US Census included 476,748 free people of color, people whose names, locations, households, and sources of income appear not only in the United States Census, but also in a bevy of other federal, state, and local documents that, when analyzed and collated, deepen and complicate our understanding of the American experience. Free people of color included indentured African servants and former slaves emancipated by former slaveholders, people free by birth and people freed by edict. Indentured servitude required contracts just as manumission required petitions; researchers can retrieve these records from state and local repositories.

A subset of free-born people of color originated from African men (both slaves and freedmen) who sired children with European-American women. The children born of such couples inherited their freedom from their mothers. The prohibition of marriages between African-American men and European-American women created a state of legal and economic vulnerability for the brood of these forbidden couplings; some jurisdictions required these out-of-wedlock or “base-born” offspring to be “bound” to local planters via unpaid apprenticeships until they reached the age of majority. The legal binding not only produced additional free labor for rural America’s planter class, but also mandated documentation of kinship and social conditions among free African American communities – crucial data points for contextualizing lineage and reconstructing lives.

On the 8th of June 1815, a Lunenburg County, Virginia court justice “ordered that the overseers of the poor do bind out Richard Edmunds to William Laffoon, according to law.” At the time, Richard Edmunds, my maternal 4x great-grandfather, was a six-year-old free person of color. Virginia marriage records show Richard Edmunds married my 4x great-grandmother, Mourning Laffoon, the free mulatto daughter of Daniel Laffoon of Lunenburg County, Virginia, on the 6th of January 1831. Laws regulating free people of color required Richard Edmunds to register as “Dick Edmond…about 30 years of age, yellow complexion, a finger on the left hand off.  No. 105” on "A list of Free Negroes and Mulattos Registered in the County of Lunenburg, Virginia, from 1815 to 1850," on 9 December 1839.

Archived records of free people of color not only facilitate ancestral research, but also demonstrate the historic tenuousness of “freedom” for Americans of African descent. Free people of color could lose their liberty for failing to produce documentation of their legal status or for becoming financially insolvent. Manumission records, freedom petitions, mandatory free Negro registries, apprenticeship documents, bastardy bonds, runaway apprentice advertisements, and re-enslavement petitions illustrate how free Africans in America - whether free by birth or liberated by judicial process – still lived along a spectrum of unfreedom. That tight-rope of surveillance and regulation generated detailed documentation illuminating how free African American families navigated a precarious legal purgatory in a pre-Civil War era where freedom was never truly free.

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Ancestry.com IS for Black People: The True Story of How to Research African American Family History - Part I

“Ancestry.com is not for black people.” Social media channels have echoed this refrain for years, metonymizing Ancestry.com, one of the world’s largest online genealogy databases, to assert that African American lineage research is impossible. This theory rests on the idea that the paper trail for African American families – at least before 1870, the year the US Census began listing all African Americans by name - remains too faint to trace. Nothing could be more wrong.

Researching Enslaved Ancestors

Americans of African descent find their enslaved ancestors’ lives documented in records throughout the nation and across the World Wide Web. The federal government maintains a wealth of documents that inform pre-1870 African American genealogy: records from The Freedmen’s Bureau, The Freedman’s Bank, The Southern Claims Commission, The Works Project Administration Slave Narratives, and the pension applications and military service files of The United States Colored Troops. Runaway slave advertisements, manumission records, slave petitions, deeds, bills of sale, cohabitation registries, and tax lists are just some of the state and local slave ancestry research resources available both online (on Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, MyHeritage.com, Fold3.com, Newspapers.com, etc.) and offline in courthouses, libraries, and archives nationwide.

Wills, estates, and probate records rank among the most revealing – and most disregarded – pieces of the slave genealogy puzzle. These prized sources often list the names, ages, physical descriptions, and family connections among America’s enslaved population. These overlooked records demonstrate how a slaveholder’s death dispersed enslaved families, auctioned them off to settle debts, hired them out to friends and neighbors, or, in some cases, relieved them of the burden of bondage.

Tracing enslaved families in estates begins with identifying the enslaved ancestor’s slaveholder(s). If the African American ancestor you are researching has a surname found among nearby European-American families living in the same community in the 1870 United States Census, search Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org for pre-emancipation estate files, wills, and probate records of individuals with your ancestor’s surname in that community. While many freedmen and freedwomen did not appropriate their former enslavers’ surnames after emancipation, a significant number did. In estate files, you may find, as I have, the names of enslaved ancestors organized in a recognizable family group on a deceased slaveholders’ estate inventory. For slaveholders, the Africans enslaved in America were the original human capital, working assets that the nation’s slave-powered economy tallied, appraised, tracked, and taxed. The names (and itemized monetary values) of the men, women, and children who labored for their enslavers’ happiness appear adjacent to the real estate, stocks and bonds, household items, and livestock listed in estate inventories. Once you determine that your ancestors are listed in an inventory, analyze the other documents in that file (including the will, if there is one) to understand how the slaveholder’s estate was settled. This record set can help one develop pedigrees, FAN clubs (friends, associates, and neighbors), and timelines for one’s enslaved ancestors.

Tracing the family history and FAN network of the enslaver will likely yield even more insights into the lives and genealogy of the people they enslaved. Many slaveholders gifted, traded, and bequeathed slaves to family and friends. As you add relatives to the slaveholder’s family tree, comb the relatives’ wills, deeds, estate papers, and probate files to determine who else among them may have enslaved your ancestors.

Applying these same techniques, I found my paternal 3x great-grandmother, Jenny (also known as Yellow Jenny and Little Jenny), in the 1822 will and estate inventory of Mary L. Christmas of Warren County, North Carolina. Per Mary’s will, Jenny was bequeathed to Mary’s brother, Lewis Yancey Christmas (1792-1859). Further research of The Christmas family revealed that Mary L. Christmas inherited Jenny in 1811 from the estate of Mary’s paternal grandfather, Captain Thomas Christmas of Warren County, North Carolina.

I found my 2x great-grandfather, Erasmus Christmas - the son of Jenny and her last known slaveholder Lewis Yancey Christmas - listed in Lewis’s will and estate papers; Lewis’s 1857 will named Erasmus as one of an enslaved family of 10 to be set free and share an inheritance of $10,000, while Lewis’s estate papers mention how Erasmus had been hired out at a monthly fee of $8 to local builder and architect, Jacob Holt, for the duration of 1858 and 1859.

I found my paternal 3x-great-grandparents, Henry Davis and Lucinda Davis, inventoried with their progeny in the estate papers of Dr. Stephen Davis of Warren County, North Carolina.

I found my paternal 4x great-grandparents, Benjamin Terrell and Harriet, along with my nearly century-old 5x great-grandmother, Holloway “Holly” Terrell, among the enslaved people named in the estate file of Tolliver Terrell of Franklin County, North Carolina.

I found the nieces and nephews of my maternal 4x great-grandmother, Caroline Coles, in the estate file of Mumford Marshall of Fauquier County, Virginia.

I found one of my maternal 4x great-grandmothers, Silvia Willis of Barnwell County, South Carolina, along with three of her children (including Alex Brown II, Lavinia “Viney” Brown, and my 3x great-grandmother, Charity Brown) listed on the property inventory of the late planter Williamson Watson Willis in his 1853 probate record. After sketching Williamson Watson Willis’s family tree (in-laws included) and reviewing the estate files and probate records of each family member, I learned that Williamson acquired Silvia from his brother, Elijah Willis. Elijah Willis purchased Silvia from the estate of Williamson’s father-in-law, Moore Johnson (husband of Charity Couch and father of Charity Johnson Willis) of Edgefield County, South Carolina.

I found my paternal 4x great-grandparents, March Ward and Rachel White, listed in the 1804 will and estate records of Solomon Ward of Onslow County, North Carolina; Solomon bequeathed my ancestors to his son, Woodhouse Ward of Onslow County, North Carolina. Woodhouse’s estate file (first opened in 1807) describes how Woodhouse’s widow hired out March Ward, Rachel White, and their three children to other local households.

Access digitized images of these brick-wall-breaking documents, as I did, at FamilySearch.org, a free online genealogy resource, and at Ancestry.com. Cross-reference the names of enslaved people found in pre-Emancipation wills, estates, and probate records with the names of freedmen found in post-Emancipation census, birth, marriage, and death records.

Examine another record set to cross-reference with data found elsewhere: Reconstruction-era “Lost Friends” and “Information Wanted” newspaper advertisements published by freed African Americans seeking kith and kin lost to slavery. These advertisements divulge details of the families slavery separated, memorializing broken bonds, telling tales of forced migration, and echoing the freedmen’s collective yearning for familial connections.

Heed the freedmen’s clarion call for information. The stories of your enslaved ancestors await you.

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Comb Your Chromosomes with Geneanet

Geneanet, “the leading genealogy website in Europe,” has freed our matching DNA segments. Yes, Geneanet has installed a chromosome browser.

The chromosome browser enables users to see where along the chromosomes they share segments of autosomal DNA with their genetic relatives. This matching DNA segment data will become more useful when Geneanet’s small pool of users grows to critical mass.

Hopefully, Geneanet will add an in-common-with/shared matches feature to facilitate genetic networking and upgrade their minimum viable chromosome browser. Log in to try the new tool. If you have not yet transferred your raw DNA data to Geneanet, then you might want to transfer now.

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Find Family with X-DNA

Never forget the X factor. X-chromosome DNA - one of the most useful, controversial, and ignored sources of genetic evidence. The X chromosome, a sex chromosome, determines each human’s biological gender. The X chromosome also packs brick-wall-busting power for solving genealogy puzzles. X-DNA can even help adoptees and others with unknown parentage find their biological parents. To discern fact from fiction and make the most of X-DNA’s magical properties, read on.

A Few Simple Rules – On The Basis of Sex

·         X-DNA for Women

o   Women inherit two copies of the X chromosome – one from each parent.

o   Women pass one X-chromosome to each of their children.

o   The X-chromosome a woman gives to each of her children, in most cases, is recombined, a mixture of X-DNA from each of her own parents.

o   A woman contributes an X-chromosome without recombination – an identical copy of one of her own X-chromosomes – to her children about 16% of the time.

·         X-DNA for Men

o   Men inherit one copy of the X chromosome – always from one’s mother.

o   Men only pass their X-chromosome to their daughters.

o   The X-chromosome that a man donates to each of his daughters is an exact replica of his own X-chromosome.

The rules regulating the X chromosome create a unique inheritance pattern that follows a Fibonacci sequence. Only a subgroup of ancestors can contribute to one’s X. Use DNA Painter’s GEDCOM tool to identify one’s potential X-DNA ancestors.

That inheritance pattern makes X-DNA an asset for adoptees and others seeking to identify unknown parents. Analyzing X-DNA can help sort and filter matches. Analyzing X-DNA can also help one build and validate relationship hypotheses. Since men only inherit X chromosome DNA from their mothers, any genetic relative with whom he shares X-chromosome DNA must be a maternal relative. Those maternal relatives may prove useful for identifying one’s mother or even more distant maternal ancestors. A woman seeking to identify her biological father should consider the amount of X-DNA shared with close relatives and other details (age difference, amount of shared autosomal DNA, etc.). While a woman’s grandmother, aunt, and half-sister will all share, on average, 25% of their autosomal DNA with her, only the paternal half-sister is guaranteed to share a completely identical copy of Chromosome X (approximately 196.1 cM of X-DNA). That paternal half-sister might prove useful for naming one’s biological father.

At AncestryDNA, genetic relatives sharing about 25% of their autosomal DNA appear in the “Close Relative-1st cousin” category. Many AncestryDNA users misinterpret the matches labelled as “Close Relative-1st cousin” as being first cousins. AncestryDNA’s “Close Relative-1st cousin” never refers to first cousins. These matches are grandparents and grandchildren. They are aunts and uncles. They are nieces. They are nephews. Half-siblings. Even double first cousins. Never expect or accept that these matches have a first cousin relationship.  On multiple occasions, I have had to inform clients that their “first cousin” was an unexpected half-sibling. Adoptees and others with unknown parentage ought to closely examine the family trees of “Close Relative-1st cousin” matches and consider the X-DNA shared among them. Since AncestryDNA neither reports nor visualizes shared X-DNA, one must employ other genetic genealogy websites and recruit matches to do the same.

 Optimize Opportunities

While 23andMe and Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder use X-chromosome DNA in addition to autosomal DNA (atDNA) to generate relative matches, AncestryDNA and MyHeritage DNA still do not. However, raw DNA data files from AncestryDNA and MyHeritage DNA include X-chromosome data. Transfer raw DNA data files from AncestryDNA and MyHeritage to GEDmatch.com and Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder to view X-DNA matches.

AncestryDNA’s raw DNA data files contain at least 28,892 X-chromosome markers (SNPs) – more than data files from any of the other commercial DNA tests. If one has the choice, choose to transfer the AncestryDNA raw data files for higher-quality X-DNA matching. Wherever you transfer your DNA data, transfer your GEDCOM there as well.

Beware of The X Chromosome Myth

“If someone matches you on the X chromosome and only on the X chromosome, then that someone should not be considered a true match.” Variations of this claim rotate in genetic genealogy circles – along with “4th cousins are really hard,” “DNA testing is just not useful for non-Europeans right now,” and “chromosome browsers are only good for ethnicity research” – and all are bogus.

Consider this example:

My paternal grandfather has two DNA matches (predicted 4th cousins) with whom he shares both significant autosomal DNA and X-DNA: Jason (18.5 cM atDNA and 37 cM X-DNA) and Sarah (17.2 cM atDNA and 30.2 cM X-DNA).

Grandpa Christmas, Jason, and Sarah all share the same segment of X-DNA.

Since my grandfather and Jason are men, they each only have one copy of the X chromosome; both inherited that one copy of the X chromosome from their mothers. The X-DNA segment that my grandfather and Jason share must have come from a common maternal ancestor. Comparing Grandpa Christmas’s family tree to Jason’s pedigree shows a pair of common maternal ancestors: Philemon Hawkins (1767-1856) and Mary Christmas (1775-1822) of Warren County, North Carolina and Franklin County, North Carolina. My grandfather and Jason descend from two of Philemon and Mary’s sons, Adam Hawkins and Brehon Hawkins respectively. The Hawkins brothers must have inherited this X-DNA from their mother, Mary Christmas. Remember: Men only inherit X-DNA from their mothers. Mary Christmas is the most recent common ancestor for this X-DNA segment.

Now, Sarah’s family tree shows that among her X-DNA ancestors are William Duke and Mary Green of Purchase Patent Plantation, Warren County, North Carolina.

William Duke and Mary Green were Mary Christmas’s maternal grandparents – and her X-DNA ancestors. William Duke and/or Mary Green passed this X-DNA segment to their twin daughters, Ann Duke (mother of Mary Christmas, maternal ancestor of Jason and Grandpa Christmas) and Thamar Duke (ancestor of Sarah). See the chart below.

Sarah and Jason share only this single X-DNA segment; GEDmatch found that Sarah and Jason share no autosomal DNA.

Despite only sharing X-DNA, Jason and Sarah have a verifiable relationship in a genealogical timeframe. Jason and Sarah likely inherited their shared X-DNA from their common ancestors, William Duke and Mary Green.

This example not only disproves the X Chromosome myth, but also demonstrates how chromosome browsers add value beyond ethnicity research and how 4th cousins are not “really hard.” In fact, repeating these steps - pooling our DNA segment data, comparing pedigrees, and using GEDmatch’s Tier 1 tools - enabled my family to reconstruct more than half of one 4x great-grandfather’s X chromosome, laying the groundwork for future research.

Collaborating with one’s DNA matches to map the X chromosome offers several benefits. Identifying the ancestors who passed down one’s X-DNA can help determine how other unknown genetic relatives sharing this same DNA are related. Mapping DNA segments can also reveal traits that one’s ancestors inherited and passed down. Among other things, Chromosome X contains genes associated with hereditary baldness and color blindness.

Use DNA Painter’s chromosome mapping tool to track which of your ancestors passed those genes to you.

To get the most out of your X-DNA:

·         Transfer your raw DNA data file and your GEDCOM file from AncestryDNA and MyHeritage DNA to GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder to access X-DNA matches. AncestryDNA raw DNA is the best transferable raw DNA data file.

·         Upload your GEDCOM to DNA Painter to identify your X-DNA ancestors.

·         Map your X-DNA and associated traits on DNA Painter.

Share this post to educate others about the probative value of X-DNA matches.

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Transfer Your Raw DNA Data to MyHeritage Now, Access Premium Features For Free Forever

For a limited time only, between February 21–28, 2021, [MyHeritage DNA is] waiving the unlock fee. You can now upload your DNA data to MyHeritage and get access to your Ethnicity Estimate, Genetic Groups, and other advanced DNA tools such as the Chromosome Browser, AutoClusters, and Theory of Family Relativity™ — absolutely free! These features will remain free forever for the DNA kits you upload to MyHeritage during this week.

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Concerning Slave Schedules

On last night's episode of PBS's Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Junior emotion ebbed and flowed with highs and lows. Entertainers Pharrell Williams and Kasi Lemmons digested their enslaved ancestors’ first-hand accounts of American history. With precision and specificity, DNA test results divulged one of Kasi Lemmons's unknown ancestors. One faux pas nearly marred the beauty of this otherwise elegant reveal: The misuse of slave schedules. During one segment, host Henry Louis Gates Junior shows Lemmons a slave schedule from the 1860 US Census, highlights the nameless entries, and says “we believe one of those five males is your great-great-grandfather Primus.” Never do that.

Slave schedules, a section of the 1850 and 1860 United States Census that counted enslaved Americans, list the name of a slaveholder, the number of people (s)he enslaved, as well as the age, color, infirmities, and runaway or manumission status of each enslaved person. Census personnel omitted the names of most enslaved people from slave schedules; regulations in 1860 dictated that enumerators only “give the names of all slaves whose age reaches or exceeds 100 years.” Lacking an identifier, researchers cannot assert that a tick mark on a slave schedule represents a specific ancestor. Slave schedules largely identify enslavers, not the enslaved.

Having Finding Your Roots repeatedly misapply slave schedules reinforces the already pervasive falsehood that tracing African American families remains a Sisyphean task of Herculean magnitude. This misrepresentation, overstating and exaggerating African American genealogy’s inherent challenges, contributes to the sense of loss, dislocation, and hopelessness that crystallizes into nihilism among people of color who accept this photogenic fiction as truth. In reality, a bevy of easy-to-access, but too often overlooked digital resources and archival records contain far more detail about African American lives – free and enslaved alike. All ancestors had names. And stories too. Stay tuned for additional posts discussing how to access one’s African American family history this month.

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Find Gifts in The Roots Corner Book Store

The Roots Corner Book Store’s DNA tests, history books, and genealogy guides make the best holiday gifts for the genea-curious, history buffs, adoptees, and budding bibliophiles among your family and friends. Click here to see what we have in stock.

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UPDATE: 23andMe’s DNA Relatives Reversal

Better late than never. Finally, 23andMe, after having “re-introduced” DNA Relatives matches who were not among users’ closest 1500 matches, has restored the ability to search one’s match list using the content of one’s notes as search criteria. This latest reversal should please customers who have, as I have long recommended, extensively annotated their DNA Relatives lists with the names of common ancestors and links to family trees. 

23andMe’s latest modification is not a full restoration of the original DNA Relatives search function. Users of the standard 23andMe platform still cannot employ Y-DNA haplogroups or mitochondrial DNA haplogroups as DNA Relatives search criteria. That once standard feature now requires a premium subscription, That premium subscription, for many, requires an “upgrade” to 23andMe’s Health+Ancestry V5 platform. Communicate your concerns to 23andMe.

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Help 23andMe Fix DNA Relatives

23andMe may reverse their recent DNA Relatives purge. 23andMe’s Customer Care posted a request on November 2, 2020 to the site’s community forum asking users to help 23andMe’s engineers restore “past connections in DNA Relatives,” including “past interactions (i.e. connections, pending invites, and messages) with those more distant than your closest 1500th or closest 5000th relative.” The company now intends to return at least some of the purged matches.

Users can volunteer to beta test “this functionality.”

Just follow these instructions:

1.     Log into 23andMe.

2.   Reply to the thread from Customer Care in the community forum.

3.   Respond to the direct message sent from 23andMe requesting the email address associated with your 23andMe account.

4.   Then, 23andMe will turn the feature on for your account.

5.    Load DNA Relatives.

6.   Communicate (via a Google Form) any and all problems.

Applaud 23andMe for listening to user feedback, for engaging customers, and for recovering functionality for a crucial product feature. Let’s hope 23andMe learned something from this latest kerfuffle. Openness and transparency in product decision-making generate trust. Trust begets loyalty, referrals, brand equity, and a self-perpetuating product. 23andMe stands to gain from collaborating with existing customers to improve and expand the DNA Relatives user experience for all.

Achieving those gains requires more interaction with customers and more restorative product developments. 23andMe ought to discuss this situation in a blog post and post a banner on the DNA Relatives page. 23andMe should have notified all customers of the DNA Relatives service changes prior to their implementation. Such an announcement would have generated enough early negative feedback from customers to justify cancelling the launch, saving 23andMe’s team all the time and effort poured into implementing, troubleshooting, and, now, repealing the misguided product strategy. As of now, 23andMe fails to address this issue anywhere other than on the site’s forum. The customers active on the company’s community forum represent a minute fraction of the site’s user base; that forum remains an insufficient medium for discussing drastic product changes that affect all customers. Now, 23andMe must work to repair the relationship with users, after having disappointed, disrespected, and dismayed their devotees with a desperate power play. Reinstating the DNA Relatives search and filter tools, admitting the company’s error, and offering a sincere apology to customers are the appropriate next steps for controlling 23andMe’s self-inflicted damage.

As genetic genealogists, we must monitor each and every product decision from each and every DNA testing company. We must sound alarms when required. We must ensure that our interests, our investments as paying customers, as avid users, and often as product evangelists, remain properly secured. To survive, leaders in the direct-to-consumer genealogical DNA test industry must learn to engage and satisfy genetic genealogists. Some may call this common sense, but sense is not so common.